Chattanooga Christian School had only one run through six innings at home against Notre Dame on Monday. Tuesday on Notre Dame's baseball field, the Chargers had 10 runs after just two times at bat.
CCS went on to win 11-1 in five innings to even the District II-A East District 2 series at one win apiece.
"Their pitcher yesterday beat us with fastballs away," Chargers coach Ben Wharton said. "We're on spring break, so we went out early on our field today and set up the pitching machine. We set it up to fastballs away and told the guys to hit the ball to right field.
"It didn't look pretty in practice. We made it a little harder in practice than in a game. You saw in that first inning, we had three or four hits to right center."
Amos Davenport smacked the first pitch of the game into right field for a single. Two batters later, John Rhodes was intentionally walked and Colt Sinor followed with a two-run single.
After a groundout, Chase McBryer and Zach Allen hit back-to-back singles with two outs to score two more runs and give CCS a quick 4-0 lead.
"The guys had good approaches today," Wharton said. "Zach Allen had a good game. He and Chase McBrayer stepped up and had some big RBIs with two outs. When you score runs with two outs, that can really deflate the other team."
CCS continued to put pressure on with two outs. Davenport singled again, this time with one out, and the Irish could not complete a double play that would have gotten them out of the inning a batter later.
Rhodes was intentionally walked again, and Sinor drew a walk to load the bases. An infield pop fly that could have again ended the inning turned into two more runs for the Chargers, and an error led to another.
Allen ripped a two-run triple down the right-field line to make it 9-0 and scored on a wild pitch before the inning ended.
"They showed up to play and got on us early," Notre Dame coach Trey Hicks said. "It's tough to be down 10-0 after two innings, and six unearned runs in the second is hard to come back from. It was a complete switch of last night."
The 10 runs were plenty for CCS starting pitcher Owen Cook. Cook pitched all five innings, allowing an unearned run and just two hits while not issuing a walk. A single in the first inning, a flyout in the third and another single in the fifth were the only three balls that even left the infield.
"I just tried to pound the zone early and get ahead in the count," Cook said. "Getting to start the game up 4-0 gave me a lot of confidence. I have a great defense behind me, and I knew they got me. If not, I had some runs to work with."
The Chargers added a run in the top of the fifth on Austin Vincent's sacrifice fly. Allen led the offense with two hits and three runs batted in. Sinor added two RBIs and two runs scored, and Rhodes and McBrayer each scored twice.
Notre Dame's run came in the fifth inning on Parker Brock's fielder's choice, which scored Joseph Ripper, who singled to start the at-bat.
Contact Idris Garcia at sports@timesfreepress.com.